As 2025 winds to a close, let’s look back at some of my favorite posts of the year—a year in which Mombian celebrated two decades of offering news, information, resources, and opinions for and about LGBTQ parents.
Let’s start with my June post on “Celebrating 20 Years of Mombian.” Twenty years is a long time to be doing anything, but I appreciated this chance to reflect. I’ll also point you over to GO Magazine, where Mary Rasura was kind enough to interview me about “Two Decades of Queer Parenting Visibility.”
Although my own son is now grown, I will always continue to cover LGBTQ family building, as in “3 Key Things for LGBTQ Prospective Parents to Know” and “The Real 30-Year (at Least) History of Reciprocal IVF,” where I dispelled myths that are circulating online about the history of RIVF.
Even though we’re well past the point where we need research to show that children of LGBTQ parents do just as well as any others—that has long been settled—social science continues to offer insights into the strengths and particularities of LGBTQ families. Two especially interesting studies this year were one from Pew Research that interviewed 30 same-sex parents to learn more about their lives, challenges, and supports, and one from the longest-running study of lesbian-headed families, which found that donor-conceived adult children of lesbian parents showed psychological resilience, regardless of the type of donor or their contact with them
I reviewed a lot of books in 2025, bringing my Database of LGBTQ Family Books to over 1,900 titles for ages 0 to 12 and for adults. My year-end roundups of board, picture, and chapter books and middle grade books will give you overviews of some of the subjects and themes for young readers. For a historical perspective, try my post about the story of the very first picture book with a lesbian mom. (Can you guess the date?)
Titles aimed at adults included the excellent anthologies Seahorses: Trans, Nonbinary, and Gender-Expansive Pregnancy; Radical Family: Trailblazing Lesbian Moms Tell Their Stories; and Boyhood Reimagined: Stories of Queer Moms Raising Sons. I had the pleasure of speaking with Gail Marlene Schwartz, editor of the last. Filter the database by the “Grown-up books” category to see even more.
Of course, LGBTQ-inclusive books continue to come under attack, and in June, I covered the heartbreaking U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said parents have the right to opt out their children before LGBTQ-inclusive books are read in classrooms. Additionally, I spoke with CEO Shimul Tolia and Editorial Director Brett Duquette of Little Bee Books, publisher of two of the books in the case, about their commitment to LGBTQ inclusion. For Banned Books Week in October, I looked again at why book bans are not just about banning books, but about shaming and suppressing children’s identities.
I celebrated the 10th anniversary of nationwide marriage equality with a look back at my post from when it happened, where I argued it was a victory by and for our children. Marriage equality came under concerted attack again this year, though, and I explained why I think we LGBTQ parents must again lead in this fight.
I also had the pleasure of interviewing Darra Gordon, the new CEO of Family Equality, who shared her vision for the organization and what drives her in her work.
I have another piece coming later this week that looks back on the progress made this year specifically around parentage legislation, so I won’t recap my posts on that topic here, but I will point to posts about two positive state court rulings in 2025: when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said a nongenetic, nongestational lesbian mother is a legal parent to the child she and her former spouse had planned for and conceived through assisted reproduction, and when a Georgia appeals court affirmed that a nongestational mother is a legal parent to the child she and her then-spouse had via assisted insemination.
And two pieces elsewhere that you may want to check out: my interview of transgender journalist and mom Erin Reed, over at LGBTQ Nation, and the interview that the becoming babyREADY podcast did of my spouse and me.
Finally, I found inspiration in the words of two of our queer parenting foremothers. I hope you do, too.
Many thanks as always to all of you for reading, sharing, and commenting; engaging on social media; and reaching out to me personally with ideas, questions, and your own stories. I’m grateful to be in community with you as we head into the new year.